Note: Citations are based on reference standards. However, formatting rules can vary widely between applications and fields of interest or study. The specific requirements or preferences of your reviewing publisher, classroom teacher, institution or organization should be applied.

Edvard Munch portrays the private and personal struggles accompanying the Norwegian painter's artistic innovations amidst the social upheavals of the late nineteenth century. Munch, with his personal fixations on a childhood filled with "illness, insanity, and death," a traumatic affair with a married woman, and quarrels with his family, pursues his artistic experimentation under a constant assault from the ghosts of the past. Bohemian Munch--maligned and embraced by a culture that was quick to kick non-conformists out, in order to gloat over their shenanigans--paid a high price for his genius, in a life painfully disturbed by passion, jealousy, and the relentless repression of a moralistic, bourgeois state.Read more...

a New Yorker Films release ; Project X ; directed and edited by Peter Watkins ; and written in collaboration with the cast ; produced in Norway by NRK and SR2 ; NRK (Oslo) & SVT (Stockholm).

Abstract:

Edvard Munch portrays the private and personal struggles accompanying the Norwegian painter's artistic innovations amidst the social upheavals of the late nineteenth century. Munch, with his personal fixations on a childhood filled with "illness, insanity, and death," a traumatic affair with a married woman, and quarrels with his family, pursues his artistic experimentation under a constant assault from the ghosts of the past. Bohemian Munch--maligned and embraced by a culture that was quick to kick non-conformists out, in order to gloat over their shenanigans--paid a high price for his genius, in a life painfully disturbed by passion, jealousy, and the relentless repression of a moralistic, bourgeois state.

Reviews

In 1973 Peter Watkins made a 110- minute film about the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch in which he employed filmic devices such as flashback, fractured sound and a psychological separation of space and time emulating Munchâs state of mind. The jigsaw puzzle is then assembled by the viewer to form a...Read more...

In 1973 Peter Watkins made a 110- minute film about the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch in which he employed filmic devices such as flashback, fractured sound and a psychological separation of space and time emulating Munchâs state of mind. The jigsaw puzzle is then assembled by the viewer to form a personal portrait of the life of the artist and the historical context around it. This new 2-DVD set includes a new high-definition video transfer, 6 minutes of 9.5mm amateur film footage shot by Edvard Munch himself in 1927, 3 short documentaries from the late 1950s and early 60s, as well as a 56-page booklet that contains one of Peter Watkinsâ self-interviews from 2005. Because Watkins believes that his work is marginalized, he no longer gives interviews but supplies researchers and journalists with prepared texts answering most any question he feels might be asked. His position on his marginalization and his analysis of what he terms âthe media crisisâ can be found on his website. As it relates to this film Watkins asks, âWhat is not political in a work of art â especially one using as powerful means of communication as the cinema or TV?â In challenging the reactionary society of his time Munch can be seen as taking a political stance. The film itself investigates popular cultureâs relationship to art and history and stresses its complexity.

The density of the narrative structure coupled with the use of non-actors implicates the viewer further from simply experiencing to a participation in the act of codifying art and sociological history. The voice-over narration creates a traditional documentary envelope while the fragmented depiction of the life mirrors Munchâs own diaries. The outcome is a unique and powerful moving image document about an artist in the early 20th century. Highly recommended for academic areas of film and media studies as well as art history.